"Give the same advice as you would to a first time mother"

[Cathycomehome]

This is what my midwife told the student midwife at my booking in appt the other week. AIBU to wonder why?

I am not a first time mother, but my son will be twelve when the new baby is born (all being well - I am ridiculously worried about jinxing it by saying "when")

Loads of differences! My favourite was the complete hysteria over bedding. The Germans sell baskets and cots complete with matching bumpers and duvets, even for a newborn, whereas the Dutch midwife had a fit at seeing a soft toy at the far end of the cot and took it out. She also removed the bumper tied to the wall and said, 'I suppose you bought this in Germany'. Er, no, it was from my SIL which is why it's in English...... They're also very anti co-sleeping. There's adverts on the telly and everything.

In NL you can drink 2 cups of coffee a day. In Germany you were only allowed latte or cappuccino. I can't remember who said what about alcohol, but somewhere was two small glasses of wine a week. I'll google in a mo.

There is loads of help to breastfeed in NL, but we're told to make up formula with tap water, it doesn't need boiling, and then just to microwave it. I translated the entire dept of Health leaflet once - it's somewhere on a thread in Breast and Bottle Feeding. I'll look.......

Forget what the Germans did about formula.

Cot bumpers a definite no no here last time round, they went on about it loads. I had a nice cot set as a gift and would religiously remove them and the cushion from the end of the cot everytime my son went near it.

Maybe because the student hadn't done it before or not many times and the mw needed to check she knew all the information that should be given

Can I do it tomorrow? Off to bed.

I'm disappointed baby wearing is just SLINGS, by the way. How do you have a whole group about that??